There’s a story there…

Often, while I’m out and about, I see things, and in my mind, I often say to myself, “There’s a story there.”

Take, for example, the scene I came across Tuesday afternoon. There it sat, in all its glory, on the Turnpike bridge. In the middle of North Center Avenue in Somerset, to be exact.

A chunk of some sort of meat. Yes, you read that right, meat. Now, I’m not too terribly squeamish, but I draw the line at examining stray chunks of meat in the middle of Somerset’s most traveled street.

However, one has to wonder haw a large, somewhat rancid looking hunk of mystery meat found its way on to the pavement. As a side note, later in the day, as I was riding past the now “infamous” spot on the Pinarello of Pain, that chunk of protein was missing. Who picked it up? (Thank you, whoever you were!)

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No, I don’t really want to know where it went, but, as meat has a tendency to smell after a while, I was glad that someone did pick it up. My lungs were being tortured enough by the exertion of a fast ride around the borough.

“There’s a story there.”

A call to the curious nature. Take for example, another incident that happened in the 1920s near Fairhope. This incident was brought to my attention by an alert reader late last winter. After this reader read my story on the tourism that train buffs generate in the southern part of Somerset County, she kindly sent me several photos of a locomotive that blew up.

Yes, literally, blew up. Steam locomotives could, and did, explode, with a force second only to nuclear in expansive force.

I have a somewhat complete library of railroad reference material, including rosters of the type locomotive that rendered itself into many small un-locomotive like pieces across the terrain of Fairhope Township.

Seems there is no mention of this event happening in my reference material. Soon, I will be taking a road trip to the Baltimore area and these photos will be accompanying me as I try to find out what this story was.

Call it a long gone mystery.

Many of the things that catch my eye don’t ever rate a few words. Take the above mentioned “meat incident.” This would not even rate the attention of anyone, but the person who was detailed to pick up the mess.

I often see things that pique my interest. Dents in a car’s sheetmetal. Bark missing from trees. An odd shoe, laying on the road. One of my all time favorites was an item of woman’s lingerie, tied to the bridge over the Potomac River from Hancock, Md., to Berkeley Springs W.Va.

A brassiere tied to the guardrail. “Now, there’s a story there,” I would think every time I saw it. It was also the source of a good chuckle. It managed to weather the elements for several years, too. Not until the bridge was re-decked did it disappear.

Defiantly, a story there.

As I take my leave for the week, I want to touch on another pair of subjects, both dealing with veterans.

A bill passed the Senate late this past summer allowing veterans to salute the flag, rather than place their right hands on their hearts. This gesture is long overdue, as many of the most patriotic citizens are passing away at the rate of 1,500 a day. An identical bill is now making its way through Congress and needs to be passed. Give the vets the right to salute the nation they served so honorably. It is a small gesture that can mean so much to those defenders of our freedoms.

The other veteran’s problem I want to touch on is about the retirements of National Guardsmen. Ever since the “right sizing” of the Clinton era, the Guard and Reserves have been taking a larger share of the defense workload. Multiple call-ups, deployments and ever increasing training demands have placed the Guard and Reserves on an equal footing as their active duty counterparts. One glaring difference — when an active duty member retires, he gets retirement benefits right away. Not so with Guardsmen and Reservists. They have to wait until their 60th birthday.

As long as Guardsmen and Reservists are serving with the same distinction as their active duty counterparts, they deserve the same benefits. Congress and the Senate need to get off their duffs, and give fair due where its due.

(Bob Leverknight, when not wondering what the heck that is on the side of the road, or wanting fair treatment for Guardsmen and Reservists, can be reached at bobl@dailyamerican.com)